


Yúyīn

by Urloth (CollyWobbleKiwi)



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-09
Updated: 2018-02-09
Packaged: 2019-03-15 19:53:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13620558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CollyWobbleKiwi/pseuds/Urloth
Summary: There was a word her mother sometimes used when she talked about the creation of Arda. It had no equivalent in any of the languages that Lúthien had studied, not that she had searched for it but it had never appeared in the dictionaries she had devoured to feed her mind when it began to starve from the lack of Valarin in her early childhood.It was a word for a sound already made, or what that sound left behind was a better definition; a sound that stayed in the ears of a listener long after the sound had stopped.- For Rose.





	Yúyīn

**Author's Note:**

> For Rose!

In the dark edges of the forest Lúthien heard a soft sweet song. She tilted her head towards it, the mellow amateur tones of the singer’s voice a striking difference from Daeron’s honey and oak songs.

She left the path she had been walking, towards where Daeron was waiting for her. Instead she crept past the hawthorn that marked a lesser taken path, her soft slippers no protection from the sharp stones and wet moss that no servant had been by to clear.

She kicked them off and hung them upon a branch to mark her way though the forest never lied to her and bent her legs back so she could move beneath the covering brush, balancing on the balls of her feet and feeling forward with her toes.

She thought she heard Daeron call out to her but did not see him when she looked behind her.

In a grotto that the gardeners had abandoned she saw the bare, mud-stained feet of a girl poking shyly out and carefully crept closer.

She investigated the shadows, sharpening her gaze, and double checked her earlier assumption. Girl perhaps or maybe older. The older ones had folded-in faces and hair turning to ash in their heads. There were no folds in this one’s face but she did have little ashy growths of hair amongst her dark brown hair near her ears. This hair was twisted into a single braid and her dress was a plain shift of the sort that the palace librarians usually wore, though not hemmed to the extreme it was on this woman’s petite frame.

Her eyes were a brown like her hair, a colour that was comforting to Lúthien’s woodland preferences.

But these parts of the girl (girl?), they were not as important as the round soft shells of her ears and the life that blazed from each sand-grain width of her skin; life that blazed and blazed and blazed and before Lúthien’s eyes was diminishing into the either as water evaporated from a kettle.

This was, she realised, one of the Men that her cousin had forgone a great fortune to see past the Girdle and housed since Morgoth had begun to sweep the lands for all Men as he had heard of prophecy that his Doom would be at their hands.

The song stopped and Lúthien realised she had been seen and straightened, embarrassed to be caught snooping about in the foliage. Drawn to her full height the Man-maid was even smaller than she had seemed.

“Pardon,” she tried to relax her spine, forming herself more solidly in the world so she was not unravelling at the edges into the shadows beneath the leaves. Once solidified her face had more features to play with so she could to offer a pleasant mien that did not speak of the sudden suffering of curiosity that had infected her, “I heard your song. It was beautiful. I wished to see the singer.”

The girl hoped to her feet and swept immediately into a curtsey that was the right amount of depth and with almost perfect poise. Her balance was a little off. Only practice would solve that.

“Greetings Lady,” the girl said to Lúthien’s delight that she was not immediately recognised, “and thank you for your compliment.”

“Are you one of those who Lord Finrod sent?” Lúthien already knew she must be so because no other Men were in the veil. The girl nodded.

“Saelind is the name that I was given,” she said with a nod, “though Andreth is the name that I was born to.”

“And which do you prefer?” Lúthien wanted to touch and see if the skin before her was as warm as that escaping life suggested.

“Saelind is what I am used to now,” the girl demurred perfectly. Not what she preferred though, Lúthien noted but instead sank into her own curtsey, “then it is a pleasure Saelind. I am Lúthien Tinúviel.”

“Oh the princess,” Saelind’s face flushed pink and Lúthien had the urge to reach out and pinch one of her cheeks between thumb and forefinger. Make the pink become a little redder.

She resisted because it was rude and instead caught Saelind’s shoulder and raised her up from her sudden low bow, marvelling at how small she was. Her head barely made it to Lúthien’s shoulder. She was miniscule.

Lúthien’s fingers against her shoulder stretched too long and pale, and the tips of her clawed nails managed to reach all the way to Saelind’s jugular.

And Saelind was warm. Like a patch of sunlight shaped into a shoulder.

Lúthien kneaded her fingers into the warmth before she could help herself and noticed the paled colour around Saelind’s lips and the ring of white sclera around her irises.

“Apologies again,” Lúthien said, “I was surprised at how warm you are.”

“I have noticed that elven skin is cooler,” Saelind had her eyes lowered but there was a fine sheen of sweat upon her upper lip.

Lúthien had scared her. That much was blatantly obvious. Who could blame the girl?

Lúthien curtseyed, low enough to make her split skirt puddle around her ankles and left before she could make a further fool of herself. The maiden-Man did not sing again when she left but Lúthien thought she heard her anyway.

-

“Ever since that madman took his sons and disappeared into the mists there has been nothing but discord,” her mother had a map splayed out. Her father was resting in a chair nearby with a chilled cloth across his eyes and the drooping signs of exhaustion in all his limbs.

Lúthien caught wisping away parts of her mother’s form and brought them back to her, patting them back into about their right places with a slight sigh. Her mother no longer kept her edges crisp and neat. Any room Melian entered she now blurred into and very little of her face was ever formed except for her eyes for they were Elu’s favourite part of Melian. Lúthien caught a part of her mother’s dress which tried to detach and flutter away as a burgundy brocade nightingale and shooed it back into her mother’s hemline.

What a strange world they lived in now that hell-eyed Fëanor of the Noldor would be longed for. Since he had seduced Morgoth and taken his crown of ill gotten jewels, since he and all his people including the seven monsters he called sons had gone East and left not a single trace of themselves behind, there had been a jarring quality to the world. It was on the edge of every breathe, the discordant see-sawing of music in freefall. Lúthien was so used to it now she did not notice it unless something was absolutely ajar.

“Mother I will be spending more time around the Men,” she looked at the map and didn’t understand what half the crisscrossing lines meant. Most of them were obsolete. Beleriand changed too fast for cartographers to keep up.

“Why so?” Melian looked up, the shape of her face splitting into what amounted to a smile, with her blunt pearl teeth which were the only unsettling thing about Melian. In all other things her mother mimicked an elf perfectly. But her teeth were too even and too square.

“I scared one of them yesterday. I want to apologise and be her friend.”

“Shouldn’t you avoid them instead?” her father asked without a twitch from the rest of his body.

“No.”

-

Saelind was easy to find. Once she ceased calling her Saelind for none of the librarians knew where she was but the other Men did. They were all as small as Saelind whom they called Andreth

Andreth. Lúthien turned the name over in her head, very aware she was on the verge of an obsession.

Andreth. That was the name said without the permissions for Lúthien to use it.

She turned it over on her tongue.

“There are so few of you,” she noted, making sure she was a good and safe distance away from Saelind so she did not feel crowded. To wit she was sitting at one end of the little pond garden with its soft waterfall arrangement, and Saelind was at the other but so far they had had no trouble hearing one another.

“Not many of us made the initial journey to Nargothrond,” Saelind was slowly making her way through a lunch that consisted of fruit and a large amount of bread. Lúthien was nibbling on lembas, more to grind down the sharper points of her teeth than for sustenance. “Originally I was going to go with my Aunt into one of the mountains where we might not be found but she insisted I go to Lord Finrod in Nargothrond.”

And Nargothrond, whilst holding strong right now, was slowly evacuating, Lúthien knew. The Men had come with the first wave of dependants who could not stay and fight. No children had been amongst the refugees so far, it seemed her cousin ran a tight ship in regards to wartime dalliances.

 “From Nargothrond I was sent,” Saelind raised her chin, “under Lord Finrod’s auspices to learn what I could in the libraries of Doriath and also to be kept safe until the fighting is done to keep the Lore from dying.”

Lúthien pursed her lips and stared at her, “Lore?” she inquired. What lore could so young a race hold?

Saelind lost her lovely smile and her eyes dipped to her hands, away from Lúthien’s.

“There is… there was plenty that my ancestors learned and did and this was what I learned until the fires came and we had to flee.”

“Learned from whom?”

“My aunt,” Saelind’s voice became even softer, “Adanel the Wise. She taught me. She said I would be the one to remember. She taught many others” the addition was hurried “but she charged me to remember it word perfect for I do not forget words once they are spoken to me.”

“Is your aunt dead?” Lúthien asked her. It seemed that way with the reverence that Saelind showed her.

Saelind’s eyes widened and then filled with tears.

“No?” it was not a statement but a whispered angry question and Lúthien suddenly knew she had stepped too far and pushed unkindly into wounds that she had no business near.

“I am sorry,” she got up and crossed the pond in one stride, offering over a handkerchief before the tears could spill because if they did Lúthien was sure this sudden sour offense in her stomach would turn into proper bile at her own behaviour, “I was unkind in my curiosity.”

“I will forgive you,” Saelind looked up at her, “you have never met a Man before me have you your Highness?”

“Lúthien please,” she made to retreat, “and no. Before you I had only read about you.”

Saelind caught her sleeve and towed her back with a mosquitos amount of strength.

“Stay here it is annoying to cast my voice so far across the garden.”

So Lúthien sat and tucked her hands into her sleeves so control the urge to investigate.

“Had you ever met Lord Finrod before?” she wanted to know. Saelind spoke with a slight accent but her vocabulary and grammar were perfect, in fact Lúthien felt a tad overshadowed by her linguistic skill.

“Yes many times,” Saelind surprised her, “and his brothers also…”

And then she stopped talking all together and stared at the pond.

This must, Lúthien deducted, be a Man thing. She laced her fingers together and waited and then waited some more. Saelind appeared to be struggling with something, her lovely eyes flickering down to her hands and back to the pond.

After five minutes Lúthien, who knew Men did not live eternal lives, finally realised that maybe this was not a Man thing.

She leant forward and craned her neck to try and make eye contact, feeling at least three tendons in her back immediately twist the wrong way on the way down.

In Saelind’s eyes there was a reflection that did not belong. It was of river water and glistening in that a flash of golden hair, but Saelind had never raised her head to look at the one who had gazed upon her that day. She had waited, head down by the river, watching him through the distorted reflection of the water until he had at last left her.

But the spell remained. The binding. The whispers of an almost and a could have and a nearly. Lúthien heard the shattered peel of a note that began too soon, changed pitch without permission, then ground across the strings of what celestial instrument had played it to a merciful stop.

A piece of a world that should have been and could have been and it had worried its way into Saelind in hopes of surviving and now lived like any other tape worm.

Lúthien mulled this problem. She did not know the full extent, of course, of what had happened. She did know she was disappointed to see that gold there. So she leant forward and pressed her mouth to Saelind’s and felt the history spool out and unravel of a kiss that might have been had once, and of a vow that would have been made without words, and of a long life for her into an oblivion Lúthien did not understand whilst he marched forward with his troops into a darkness that felt familiar as her mother.

Lúthien read this history and kissed Saelind harder for it, to erase the golden gleam but it yet persisted and likely always would. Even fates that never were could leave a mark.

“Oh!” Saelind blinked alive again, “is that why you have been paying me attention?”

Lúthien considered that accusation. It didn’t seem upset. Saelind was blinking and the gold in her gaze was back wherever it usually hid.

“Yes,” she decided and plucked Saelind easily up from the bench to her lap so there might be a chance of her neck not straining quite so much with each kiss.

There was a warmth against her hand, a palm sliding against hers carefully as Saelind backed away from the kiss and considered her very carefully.

Her fingers barely made it to the webbing of Lúthien’s.

So small. And her skin was so soft and warm. She smelled nice, the soap she used had a good amount of camomile in it.

“Saelind?” Lúthien was abruptly aware of a great deal of unease surrounding this situation, “how old are you?”

“I am twelve and nine,” was the both terrible and mystifying answer.

“I do not know what that means to a Man,” Lúthien’s stomach revolutioned one way then back flipped another and she rubbed away the sweat gathering on her palms onto her sleeves and carefully rearranged her hands a little more properly on Saelind’s waist though in this state between them there was nothing really that could be said to be actually proper.

Saelind gave her a look that was understanding and cupped her face, “it means I am an adult,” she confirmed with an airy amused ease, “in fact I am what is called an old maid.”

Then Saelind’s face became solemn, “we are very different People, you and I. I will live so quickly that you will probably still be putting your shoes on when I am being laid in the grave.” Her tone was jovial but her eyes held unhappy ghosts and the gold slicked across her pupils as a strand of hair caught in the wind which Andreth had nearly, _nearly,_ followed back to the source before her Aunt had called her back into the house.”

“I have never been so interested in someone that I wanted to pursue them,” Lúthien countered, “I have no clue of how to court and how to love. I might break your heart one thousand times before the day is over.”

“Well that is the world we are living in now,” Saelind stroked her cheeks with little thumbs that were surprisingly rough, “I can accept that so long as you don’t do it on purpose.”

When she said that her heartbeat sped up and behind her heart’s worried acceleration Lúthien heard a voice.

“I will try not to,” Lúthien tilted her face against the touch. It was worth the effort to make her mouth and nose and eyelids well defined if Saelind would stroke them as gently as she was. It felt as though a map was being made of her face.

“You are quite different,” Saelind said at last, “is it because your mother is not an elf?”

“Yes,” Lúthien hummed when fingers touched her ears and flicked them so they lay out from her head instead of laid back. The touch bestowed was especially light against her earlobes and the topaz rings though them, “and because I am myself.”

It was a little effort and a definitely neck crick to bend her head down enough that she could rest it on Saelind’s warm chest. In fact she may have wrapped her arms under Saelind’s posterior and raised her up a little more.

There was a word her mother sometimes used when she talked about the creation of Arda. It had no equivalent in any of the languages that Lúthien had studied, not that she had searched for it but it had never appeared in the dictionaries she had devoured to feed her mind when it began to starve from the lack of Valarin in her early childhood.

It was a word for a sound already made, or what that sound left behind was a better definition; a sound that stayed in the ears of a listener long after the sound had stopped.

There it was in Andreth’s chest.

Lúthien pressed her ear closer and closed her eyes, making peace with the little shard of predestination that had been crushed to pieces by the actions of some unknown-to-them-all man.

She wanted to call Saelind Andreth the way that the lingering shimmer of gold had called Saelind Andreth, quietly trying to coax her to raise her head and look at him instead of a fast flowing river. A quiet pain pierced her heart, not jealousy but grief for the golden remnant because he was surely one of Finrod’s brothers and that whole family gravitated towards fate and fated things. He would have known even with the world adrift beneath them all. Something would have called him and so he had called back. But then fate broke and Andreth-Saelind had not answered.

Lúthien pressed a kiss against Saelind’s throat, right at the hollow, then worked her way up to her mouth, ears twitching when she heard her name called distantly but not by Saelind. Daeron was looking for her. Had her mother not told him to take a holiday whilst Lúthien tracked down the mystery of Saelind?

She took another kiss from Saelind’s lips in time for her mother to happily kick away a moss-covered boulder that Lúthien had not realised had rolled onto a second path into the pond garden. She cracked open one eye to see what the reaction was.

“Hm,” her mother said, staring down at them both while Daeron hovered with horror written across his face, “Daeron they are kissing. No explanation is required here. Come a long.”  

 


End file.
